macOS 12.3 Battery Drain

Depending on how Recently the upGrade was performed - the battery usage will be normal as the entire drive is being re-indexed with all the changes that have been done.

Suggest keep on the charger for maybe a day or so to allow the indexing to complete. Then the two processes should settle down to normal usage.

In so doing - the battery discharging should also increase - get better

Q - 1 - ClamXAV (antivirus)

Q - 2 CleanMyMac X

A 1 - There are no known Windows-like Viruses in the wild that self replicate and affect macOS, because of the underling UNIX  Foundation and Permission Limitation. 

The Only thing this Antivirus software is protecting is the Bank Account of the Developers and for zero return to the User aside from the problems this software creates.

The The Built in Security  is all that is required to protect the computer.

A 2 - Any Third Party Applications that will interfere with the normal operation of the OS, alter, modify, remove or delete or attempt to do so is an invitation for disaster and may require a Reinstallation of the OS in-order to replace any modified, altered, removed or corrupted elements of the OS this software has inflected on this computer 

Although some or all of these Applications maybe available on the Apple Apps Store, it does not mean Apple has verified what exactly the Application can do, does do or is doing to the Computer. That responsibility is left to the User to perform their due diligence on the Application before purchasing and installing it.

Any of the below should be removed as per Developers Instructions 

This includes AntiVirus, Disk Cleaners, Disk Optimizes, UnInstaller etc.

This will include CleanMyMac  and really hope the user will take a moment to read the first 600 Posting specific to this Application

There has been enough advise offered for the User ( you ) to make an informed choice what the next course of action is required to possibly fix this computer issue.

The suggestions have been put forth on a volunteer basis, in good faith and in the best interests of the computer.

MacBook Pro 16" 2019 user here. Don't bother with 12.3 and up. Tried a clean reinstall of 12.3.1 and 12.4, both experienced the same issue (powermetrics said that the CPU can't go down from C3 state after sleep, thus causing the battery drain during usage). Installing 12.2.1 solved the problem.

I think Apple just won't care anymore to us Intel mac users. There is even nothing listed in known issues since 12.3 came related to this.

User wrote

" Good afternoon.

MacBook Pro 16 (2019) - there is the same problem that the commentator wrote about above.

The battery capacity on my laptop is 87%.

With Monterrey 12.2 OS installed, a fully charged battery was enough for 8.5 hours of operation (with still 30% of the charge left).

After upgrading to Monterrey 12.3, the fully charged battery discharges completely in 4-4.5 hours. The laptop is always hot, even with one open Safari program.

More than two weeks have passed since the update, all files have been fully indexed, but the battery still runs out quickly and the laptop is very hot. Resetting SMC and PRAM does not solve the problem. "

In this case would suggest the below

1 - Suggest restarting in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

2 - Does the issue present in this mode ?

3 - If not - there could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac. Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

4 - If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

If still having the same issue after the above, please advise

For me I have to manually backup then reinstall and reconfigure apps. Lesson #1: always make a full system backup before upgrade. Apple's upgrade (at least for Intel mac) turns out to be even less trustworthy than Windows! (I am new to mac by the way). I don't recommend downgrading to Catalina, as Monterey have that "low power mode" which is very good as it disables Intel's TurboBoost and does pretty much nothing else. TurboBoost will keep our Intel CPU at an inefficient power/voltage curve when we actively uses it.

As for the 12.2.1 installer itself, Apple usually always keep old full installer around. For Intel mac, here is the download link: InstallAssistant.pkg

Also since I learnt that new macOS upgrades aren't trustworthy, I have a separate APFS volume where I usually install the latest update there, and check for issues before upgrading my main macOS installation. To be fair, this is one area where macOS excels: those APFS volumes are flexible (e.g. can be used for full OS install) and only use disk space for as much as it needed to (no preallocated space like traditional GPT partition).

[This is a Direct Download Link] 

Apple offers sub version of macOS as well! They just don’t give it out publicly (only the latest version is available on App Store). The link that I shared is for 12.2.1 and it is still downloadable until now. You can even grab macOS 11.1 for example if you need it.

Also, you don’t have to install it on USB stick. Performance will be very very bad (even for testing), and the battery life will not be representative of the actual condition (the Intel CPU can’t go down to deep sleep state when idling certain USB stick is plugged in). You can create APFS volumes directly from Disk Utilities and then remove that afterwards. I kept like around 4 of those APFS volumes. One is my work OS, other one is for personal use, the other two is for testing new version and for other testing purposes (I kept deleting and recreating them as needed). You can install macOS to those APFS volumes without rebooting to the recovery partition (yes, you can install it right away from the macOS installer while you're booted in your existing macOS installation!). Really, more people should know about this "hidden trick" for macOS as it is very useful both for testing and to keep your main installation pristine.

[Edited by Moderator]

Yep.....I download and installed this Thursday a week ago.....on Friday morning, the Apple tech called me on a follow-up to my original battery drain issue......we did some tests and found that the 12.5 was projecting 6.6 to 8.8 hrs of battery time.....we looked at the battery charts that I have been keeping and noticed that Friday mornings chart looked different....

I decided to keep a log for the next 4 days, hr by hr and not usage and remaining....the first day I got 9.5 hrs between charges......by the end of the 4th day, I was getting between 8 and 11 hours of battery time.....I kept the computer on all day.....sometimes I would let sit without using it, but the battery was like flatlined for no usage during that period......

so, to answer your question, by downloading and installing OS 12.3, I has appeared to solve my battery drain issues......I am now a happy camper.......I only have to charge one time a day....start using at ~8:00am and charge at ~9:00pm......the plug in again when I go to bed (1:00am or so)....then awake to a 100% charge and I can now go about my daily business as I could do before the issue......hope you have the same results......keep us advised as to your results

Edit to above:.......I am happy with MacOS 12.5......install it and see what you get

Hey BertaKlein!

I did just the same with my MacBook Pro 2020 Intel. It was originally shipped with Catalina and yes with Monterey I only got just about 3 to 4 hours. After downgrading it to Catalina it works very well, is fast and the battery life is so much better almost like my iPads battery life. I liked the new features like the control center, optimised battery charging and universal control, but I need the battery of my Mac all day so I had to sacrifice these features.

My battery drain issue just got worse to the point where my MacBook Air would shut down when it was not plugged into a power outlet. I had tried all the resets but nothing worked. In the country where I live, we have 2 years of warranty with MacBooks so as I had two months left before the warranty ended, I had my battery replaced free of charge. It works like a charm now. I still don't know what the problem was but evidently it was the battery otherwise Apple would not have replaced it. Strange given that I'd only been using it less than 2 years.

The 12.4 version is finally out. Hope this issue got solved...

It´s pretty easy with the MacOS Recovery mode for intel-based Macbooks. Just follow the steps of Option 1 from the link below:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/downgrade-macos-version/

good luck!

Suggest opening Activity Monitor >> View >> View ALL Processes. Check CPU tab for highest usages by Process. Do the same for Memory tab.

Does there appear to be some run away process you can identify by name.

refer to picture below. Running M1 Mac Mini just upgrade to Monterey 12.3.1 and all looks and performance normal. This is after sitting idle for 1 hour and no applications running beyond Monterey, Mail and Activity Monitor